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THE 



CHARACTER OF THE GENTLEMAN. 

AN ADDRESS 



STUDENTS OF MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OHIO, 



MONTH OF AUGUSTj MDCCCXLVI. 



SECOND AND ENLARGED EDITION. 



BY FRANCIS LIEBER, 

PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND ECONOMY IN SOUTH CAROLINA 

COLLEGE ; AUTHOR OF POLITICAL ETHICS ; PRINCIPLES OF 

INTERPRETATION IN LAW AND POLITICS ; ESSAYS 

ON LABOUR AND PROPERTY, ETC. 



COLUMBIA AND CHARLESTON, S. C, 
ALLEN, McCARTER & CO. 

MDCCCXLVII. -'<fo^~C^- 






I. C. Morgan, Printer, Columbia, S. C. 



PREFACE. 



The students of Miami University, in the 
state of Ohio, did me the honour of inviting* 
me, during" the past summer, to dehver an 
address on the evening before their Com- 
mencement day. I had never visited that 
teeming* reg-ion of the spreading* West, and 
g-ladly accepted the proffered invitation. 
The address was printed, according to cus- 
tom, and I was furnished with a Hberal 
supply of copies, not sufficient, however, 
to satisfy all persons who seemed desirous 
of perusing it. Repeated propositions to 
republish it were made, but they would 



IV. PREFACE. 

not have induced me to venture upon a 
second edition of so fugitive a composition, 
had not some trustees and many students 
of our own institution desired me to do it. 
The request of my young* friends, espe- 
cially, led me to inquire of the publishers, 
Messrs. Allen, McCarter & Co., whether 
they would be wiUing to undertake the 
publication of so small a work, which, in 
its nature, can promise but very limited re- 
muneration, if indeed any. They promptly 
and liberally decided that they would un- 
dertake the work, and I now offer the fol- 
lowing pages, still called on the title-page 
an address, but forming in reality an essay. 
For, in preparing the copy for republica- 
tion, I have not only felt at liberty to make 
alterations and many additions, but I have 
thought it my duty to do so, simply because 
my composition is now to be read, and not 



PREFACE. V. 

to be heard, and because I was desirous of 
rendering it less unwortliy of a second issue 
from the press. 

I must beg* the reader to keep this fact in 
mind, should he, in perusing these pages, 
feel disposed critically to compare the pres- 
ent length of the address with the time 
which ought in fairness to limit spoken 
performances of the kind, and possibly to 
charge me with a failing against which I 
have a strong aversion — the error of de- 
taining hearers or readers, of speeches, ad- 
dresses, exhortations, messages and docu- 
ments, beyond reasonable bounds. No one 
acknowledges more readily than myself, the 
inconvenience arising from lengthy lucu- 
brations or unmeasured effusions. They 
war with a virile style, with vigorous 
thought and close attention, and carry 
along in their own enfeebling length the 



VI. PREFACE. 

surest means of unnerving* the efficacy 
they might otherwise have possessed, or 
of diluting- the knowledge they might have 
conveyed. We must acknowledge that this 
has become a national, and, I believe, a 
somewhat serious evil of ours, which it is 
full time to amend. But, as to the pages I 
here offer, the reader will consider that 
although the words still retain the form of 
addressing hearers, they are in fact an es- 
say, as was stated before, and as such I 
would hope that it is not too long in propor- 
tion to the great importance of its subject- 
matter, considered as an invaluable element 
of the high and various civilization, which 
has become the proud inheritance and re- 
sponsible talent of the vast family composed 
by the advanced nations of the Occident. 

F. L. 

S. 0. College, Jan. 1847. 



THE CHARACTER OF THE GENTLEMAN. 



ADDRESS. 

Young Gentlemen, 

The very word by which I have the 
pleasure of addressing you, will form the 
subject-matter of the address, which, in the 
spirit of great kindness, you have called 
upon me, unknown to you as I am, to de- 
liver on this festive day. I tender you my 
cordial thanks for this proof of your re- 
gard ; but in doing so, I must remind you 
that I find difficulties of no common char- 
acter surrounding me at this moment. My 
foot treads for the first time the soil of your 
verdant state ; I am imacquainted with 
what may be pecuHar to your society, or 
characteristical of this your institution. I 



10 THE CHARACTER OF 

thus stand in danger of leading* you to the 
unmarked plains of unprofitable g*enerali- 
ties. Let me beg* you, therefore, to bear 
with me, should you consider my subject 
not sufficiently appropriate for this particu- 
lar occasion, for which I have selected the 
Character of the Gentleman. It appeared 
to me that an inquiry into the proposition, 
What is the true character of the g*entle- 
man, and what rules of action do we derive 
from the results of this inquiry, might be 
made useful and instructive to young men 
who, in receiving a liberal education, are 
preparing themselves for the most impor- 
tant walks of practical life, or the elevated 
spheres of literature, eloquence and action. 
Young as you are, you must have ob- 
served, that the term gentleman, indeed, is 
used in common intercourse almost unmean- 
ingly, or as a term merely indicating that 



THE GENTLEMAN. 11 

we do not mean the opposite — of a negative 
import, therefore ; but that the word gen- 
tleman has also come to designate, in a di- 
rect and positive manner, a character of 
high and even lofty attributes, and, at the 
same time, is employed on occasions appa- 
rently much differing in their nature. It is 
made use of as an incentive in education at 
home and training at school with those who 
are yet sporting through the age of boy- 
hood. Every one of us has felt his boyish 
heart glow more warmly when our parent 
or teacher said, with smihng approval. You 
are a little gentleman ; and Dr. Thomas 
Arnold, the solid scholar, wise and loving 
christian, devoted friend of liberty and 
great schoolmaster, pronounced it as his 
highest aim to make the boys and youth 
entrusted to his care, feel like christian 
gentlemen. An English writer, to express 



12 THE CHARACTER OF 

most Strongly his admiration of Plato's 
works, says that they are pervaded by a 
spirit, almost, of a christian gentleman ; an 
officer of the army or navy may be tried 
for ^^ conduct unbecoming a gentleman" — a 
charge ruinous to his career, if the court 
pronounces him guilty ; ^^ on the word of a 
gentleman, '^ is considered among men of 
character equivalent to a solemn assevera- 
lion, and the charge ^^ he is no gentleman," 
as one of the most degrading that can be 
brought against a man of education. You 
would understand me at once as being de- 
sirous of conveying a grave idea, were I 
to say that Socrates, though condemned by 
vulgar and ferocious envy, died passion- 
less, a philosopher and a gentleman, or that 
Charles the First, of England, after having 
long dispensed with veracity, and often 
stooped to unworthy practices, demeaned 



THE GENTLEMAN. 13 

himself, during* his trial and on the scaffold, 
like a gentleman. 

We naturally ask, then, what is the mean- 
ing* of this comprehensive term, and is there 
any thing* substantial in the character which 
it designates, or is it an idol, arbitrarily set 
up by fickle Fashion, beside morahty, per- 
haps above religion ? Has it become a 
caricature, however innocent at first, or 
ought it to be well known and attentively 
cultivated ? 

I must not detain you with the well- 
known etymologies of the word, given 
among others by Gibbon, nor with its 
meaning in the English law. Blackstone's 
Commentaries, or any proper book of refer- 
ence, will speedily satisfy the curious on 
this point. Let us rather endeavour to as- 
certain what is meant at present by those 
who choose their words with care and 



14 THE CHARACTER OF 

knowledg-e, when they use the term gen- 
tleman in its highest acceptation. I believe 
it signifies that character which is distin- 
guished by strict honour, self-possession, 
forbearance, generous as well as refined 
feelings, and pohshed deportment — a char- 
acter to which all meanness, explosive irri- 
tableness and peevish fretfulness are ahen ; 
to which, consequently, a generous can- 
dour, scrupulous veracity, courage, both 
moral and physical, dignity, self-respect, a 
studious avoidance of giving offence to oth- 
ers or oppressing them, and liberality in 
thought, argument and conduct, are habit- 
ual and have become natural. Perhaps we 
are justified in saying that the character of 
the gentleman impUes an addition of refine- 
ment of feeling, and loftiness of conduct to 
the rigid dictates of morality and purifying 
precepts of religion. It seems to me that we 



THE GENTLEMAN. 15 

always connect the ideas of honour, poHsh, 
collectedness of mind and Uberal disposition 
with the word gentleman, and feel that its 
antagonistic characters are — if you permit 
me, in the spirit of philosophical inquiry, to 
use words, some of which do not often find 
a befitting place in a gentlemanly discourse 
— the clown, the gossip, the backbiter, the 
dullard, coward, braggart, fretter, swag- 
gerer, bully, ruffian and the blackguard, 
according to that peculiar attribute of the 
gentleman, the opposite to which we may 
be desirous of pointing out in the antago- 
nistic character. 

If I use here the word polish^ I mean, in- 
deed, that urbanity which, in most cases, is 
the effect of a careful education and choice 
intercourse, consisting, in other words, in 
high breeding, but which, nevertheless, may 
result from native qualities so strong that 



16 THE CHARACTER OF 

subsequent cultivation may become com- 
paratively unimportant. There are native 
gentlemen, as there are native captains, 
bards, orators and diplomatists. Whoever 
has read captain Wilson's account of the 
Pelew Islands,"^ will concede that the king- 
Abba Thulle and his brothers, especially 
Raa Kook, were, in all their nudity and 
want of acquaintance with white men, as 
delicately feeling* and complete g'entlemen 
as can be found in any nation of long* 
planted civilization ; and I have at this mo- 
ment an old, now departed, negro slave in 
my mind, w^hom I have never seen other- 
wise than oblig'ing*, polite, anticipating*, dig*- 
nified, true, and forbearing* — in short, a 
g*entleman in his lowly sphere. As a mat- 

* Account of the Pelew Islands, composed from the Journals 
of Captain Henry Wilson, wrecked on those Islands in the Ship 
Antelope in 1783, by G. Keate, Esq., 4th edition, London, 1789. 



THE GENTLEMAN. 17 

ter of course, this can take place by way of 
exception only ; but the more difficult the ex- 
ception, the more honourable is the instance. 
The character of the g^entleman produces 
an equality of social claims and supersedes 
rank, office or title. It estabhshes a repub- 
lic of intercourse, as we speak of the Re- 
public of Letters. Nowhere appears, and 
indeed can appear, this fact more strikingly 
than in the messroom of a British regiment 
where the colonel and the ensign, who, un- 
der arms, stand in the relation of the strict- 
est miHtary discipline, meet on the common 
ground of gentlemanly equality, and freely 
accord to each other the privileges to which 
every member of the great commonwealth 
of comity is fairly entitled. The character 
of the gentleman passes the bounds of states 
and tongues, and without enfeebling our love 
of country (did it so, we would repudiate it,) 



18 THE CHARACTER OF 

gives a passport, acknowledged through 
the wide domain of civiUzation. In anti- 
quity, almost everything was circumscribed 
not only by nationality, but even by the 
mural confines of the city ; in modern times 
the freemasonry of a liberal education, of 
good manners and propriety of conduct — 
in a word, of a gentlemanlike bearing, ex- 
tends over entire hemispheres. It is a sway 
which is daily widening. Turkey seems to 
be now in the very act of giving in her ad- 
hesion to the vast community of gentlemanly 
nations. 

In order to place the type of the char- 
acter, which we are contemplating, more 
distinctly before your minds, I feel induced 
to give you the translation of a passage, 
which I found in a valuable French work, 
entitled British India in 1843, by Count 
Warren. The author, a Frenchman, was 



THE GENTLEMAN. 19 

educated at Paris^ obtained a lieutenancy 
in a British royal regiment in India, and 
served there during* nine years. My trans- 
lation is literal, and you will remember that 
the original was written by a Frenchman — - 
a consideration which gives peculiar force 
to some parts, and will induce you to make 
allowance for others on the score of French 
vivacity. Count Warren, speaking of his 
colonel and the aid-de-camp of the regiment, 
says : 

'' I found in those two men a type essen- 
tially English, and, at the same time, a 
degree of perfection, to which it is, perhaps, 
not given to Frenchmen to attain. The 
reader must have seen that I was not 
disposed to view the defects of English 
society with too indulgent an eye ; I do 
not compare it, for a moment, with ours, as 
to engaging quaUties — urbanity, kindness, 



20 THE CHARACTER OF 

simplicity, and as to all the delights which 
can render hfe happy, such as grace, hon- 
homie and charming manners; but as we 
do not find the diamond in gold and silver 
mines, but in the layers of crumbled rocks 
and coarse sand, so do we find the most 
perfect type of man buried deep in the 
rude elements of our neighbours; the perfect 
EngUsh gentleman is the Phoenix of the 
human species. There is wanting in French- 
men, to attain to this height, nothing but a 
more elevated and intense sentiment of 
personal dignity, a more rehgious respect 
for the divine part which the Almighty has 
vouchsafed to men. There are few, I 
might say, there is not one among us, who 
is a hero before his valet-de-chambre or his 
most intimate friend. However excellent 
a Frenchman may be in society, before 
strangers or in the presence of ladies, his 



THE GENTLEMAN. 21 

very bonhomie causes him at once to lower 
himself, so soon as he is alone with the 
friend of his heart, the companion of his 
studies, the confidant or messenger of his 
first follies. This results, I shall be answer- 
ed, from an excess of two good qualities — 
from our absence of affectation and the 
gaiety so characteristic of the French tem- 
per ; but we have also generally the defects 
of these two quahties — an inchnation to let 
ourselves go without restraint, impurity of 
thought and conversation,^ exaggeration 
and harliquinadej'l which we are astonished 
to meet with at every moment in the gravest 
men and best minds. The perfect English 
gentleman never follows solely his impulses. 



♦ Grivois in the original, which is, literally translated, smut- 
tiness. 

t Harliquinade is in the original ; I could not translate it by 
Buffoonery. 



22 THE CHARACTER OP 

and never lowers himself. He carries 
conscientiousness and the remembrance of 
his dig*nity into the smallest details of hfe. 
His temper never betrays him, for it is of 
the same character with his exterior ; his 
house mig-ht be of glass; every one of 
his acts can bear the broadest light and 
defy criticism. From this we see that the 
individual, whom we have dehneated, is 
not a product purely indigenous ; he must 
undergo several transplantations, respire 
the air of the continent, and especially of 
France, in order to attain to perfect ma- 
turity, and to get rid of certain qualities 
inherent in the native soil — disdainfulness, 
prejudices, etc. But, if education, cir- 
cumstances and travel have favoured this 
developement, it is of him, above all, that 
we may say, he is the lord of creation." 
The duchess of Abrantes, as enthusi- 



THE GENTLEMAN. 23 

astically a Frenchwoman in feeling, opinion, 
spirit and manners, as ever loved la belle 
France^ says, in her memoirs, diat she must 
relate an anecdote of lord Wellington, 
when fighting against her husband in Spain, 
^^ showing him in that favourable aspect, 
which is really the radiant light surrounding 
the true English gentleman."^ 

So far our French authors, the first of 
whom is right in calhng the character, de- 
signated the gentleman, a type pecuharly 
Anglican. It belongs to the English race ; 
nor is it long since it has been developed 
in its present and important form. Lord 
Campbell, in his Lives of the Lord Chan- 
cellors of England, says that one of the 
earhest instances of the word gentleman 
being used in the modern sense, was, when 
in 1640 the Commons, unwilHng to vote 

* Vol. 9, page 202, Paris edition of 1835. 



24 THE CHARACTER OF 

supplies to Charles the First, before set- 
tling* their g-rievances, although the king 
had promised to give due consideration to 
the latter, were told by lord keeper Finch, 
that they should freely vote the money, for 
^- they had the word of a king, and not only 
so, but the word of a gentleman. ''"^ But so 
occurs a passage in Shakspeare, ^^ sir, the 
king is a noble gentleman,'' and Pistol calls 
himself, in Henry the Fifth, ^^ as good a 
gentleman as the emperor." The passage, 
however, in which the poet seems to ap- 
proach closest to the modern sense of the 
word, is that in which Antonio, a merchant, 
is called ^^ a true gentleman."! Yet, it 

* See note to page 561, vol. 11, of Lives of the Lord Chan- 
cellors. Lord Byron distinguishes in a manner somewhat 
similar, between nobleman and gentleman, when, in the preface 
to Marino Faliero, he observes that 'Mt is the fashion to 
underrate Horace Walpole ; firstly, because he was a noble- 
man ; and, secondly, because he was a gentleman.'' 

t Merchant of Venice, III, 4. 



THE GENTLEMAN. 25 

cannot be denied, that throughout Shak- 
speare's works — that surprising* panorama 
of human Hfe — the term gentleman is al- 
most exclusively used either for nobleman, 
or a man of the higher classes with pohshed 
and graceful manners; or its meaning is in 
a state of transition between the knight of 
high and sensitive honour, and the mordern 
gentleman ; but it hardly ever designates 
the true modern gentleman, although the 
word occurs nearly five hundred times, 
according to the laborious concordance, for 
which the public owe very sincere thanks 
to our countrywoman, Mrs. Clarke. 

You will, of course, not misunderstand 
the position I have advanced, that the 
present type of the gentleman is of modern 
developement and Anglican origin, as if I 
could mean that there are no true gentle- 
men in other countries, or that there have 

4 



26 THE CHARACTER OP 

been none in antiquity. All I can wish to 
convey is, that with other races and at 
other periods, the character of the gentle- 
man has not developed itself as a national 
type, and as a readily understood and uni- 
versally acknowledged aggregate of cer- 
tain substantial and lofty attributes ; nor is 
there now, in any other language, a word 
corresponding in meaning to the word gen- 
tleman, though all of Latin origin have 
words of the same etymology. Even in 
English, the word gentlewoman has not 
followed, in the modification of its meaning, 
the corresponding change in the signi- 
fication of the term gentleman, though the 
word lady has done so upon the whole. 
The French word gentilhomme has re- 
tained the meaning, which we give to the 
English word cavaher. 

Instances of gentlemanliness in antiquity 



THE GENTLEMAN. 27 

or with other races, are not wanting*. The 
ancient Dherma Sastra of the Hindoos or- 
dain, that a man who loses a law-snit^ shall 
not be liable to punishment, if in leaving 
the court, he murmurs or openly rails 
against the judge — a law, it will be ac- 
knowledged, exclusively dictated by a spirit 
of gentlemanly forbearance. When Lycur- 
gus treated Alcander, who had put out one 
of his eyes, with forbearance and even con- 
fidence, he proved himself a gentleman, as 
he did towards his nephew Charilaus, under 
the most tempting circumstances. When 
Caesar, after the batde at Pharsalia, burnt 
the papers of Pompey, which might have 
disclosed to him the names of all his per- 
sonal and most dangerous enemies, he acted 
as a gentleman ; if indeed, he did not throw 
a secret glance at them, which, from the 
general tenour of his life, I think we have 



28 THE CHARACTER OF 

no right to suppose. Alexander began his 
career as a high-bred gentleman toward 
friend and foe, and could never wholly 
disguise that nature had moulded him for 
one ; but what with withering absolute 
power, intoxicating victories and riotous 
intemperance, she was robbed of her fair 
handiwork. The pages of Prescott impress 
us with the sad behef that Montezuma 
was a gentleman, but he was not treated 
as such; for, the Spaniards, punctiliously 
courteous among themselves, did not think 
it necessary to bear themselves as cava- 
liers, and how rarely as men ! toward the 
'^ unbaptized rabble. '^ The French officer 
who, in the Peninsular battle, charged the 
English commander, but merely saluted 
him when he found that the latter had only 
the bridle-arm, and could not fight, was 
most assuredly a gentleman in the truest 



THE GENTLEMAN. 29 

sense. But we speak here of national types, 
of distinct classes of characters, clearly 
stamped by an imprint, known and acknow- 
ledged by the whole people ;^ and as to 
antiquity, we need only remember the 
scurrilous invectives, with which even the 

* We have a parallel case in the character of the phi- 
lanthropist. There were mild and charitable persons in 
antiquity. The account of the Samaritan was felt and under- 
stood by every hearer. The ancient Hindoo law^-giver, who 
sublimely commanded : '' Be like the sandle tree which sheds 
perfume on the axe that fells it," was inspired with more than 
mere philanthropy; yet the type of the philanthropist, that 
combination of attributes which we associate with the w^ord, is 
a modern type, and was unknowm in antiquity or the middle 
ages. There would be something strangely odd in speaking of 
an ancient Roman philanthropist, except it were done for the 
very purpose of indicating how the individual in antiquity 
anticipated the character and stood alone in his virtues, now 
connected with the term philanthropist. The type of the 
opposition member is another. There w^ere citizens in ancient 
times, as in the middle ages, who, though opposed to the ruling 
powder, did not brood over sedition or revolt; yet the loyal 
opposition member is a strictly modern type — a noble and 
indispensable type, yet fully developed only since the times ot 
George the First. 



30 THE CHARACTER OF 

first orators did not think it beneath them 
to assail their opponents in the Roman 
senate or the Athenian ecclesia, to be 
aware that, in our times, a member would 
be instantly declared out of order and put 
down, were he to make use of similar lan- 
g*uag"e and resort to equal personalitieSj 
even in assemblies in which, to the detri- 
ment of public tone and public service, 
deviations from parliamentary decorum no 
longer form rare exceptions. Falsehood 
did not disgrace with the ancients, as it 
does infallibly with modern free nations. 

It does not appear difficult to account for 
the fact that the peculiar character which 
we call the gentleman, should be of com- 
paratively late developement, and have 
shown itself first fully developed with the 
English people. Each of the various con- 
stituents of this character required peculiar 



THE GENTLEMAN. 31 

social conditions to come to maturity. The 
middle ages were at times — though not so 
often as is frequently supposed — sufficiently 
favourable to the developement of chival- 
rous honour under the united influence of 
an active love of individual independence, 
and a softening reverence for the softer sex. 
But one of the pervading characteristics of 
those angry times, was that of exclusive 
privilege, contradistinguished from a broad 
acknowledgment of the rights of all and a 
willing recognition of humanity in every 
one — shown even in a graduated duty of 
allegiance. Medieval Uberty was almost 
always a chartered one, extorted by him 
who had the power to extort, and grudged 
by him w^ho had not the power to withhold. 
Modern liberty, on the contrary, is consti- 
tutional, that is, national, recognizing rights 
in all, covering the land, and compassing 



32 THE CHARACTER OF 

the power-holder himself. That exclusive- 
ness and the constant feuds and appeals to 
the sword, prevented the growth of the 
collected calmness, ready forbearance and 
kind reciprocity, which we have acknow- 
ledg-ed as necessary elements of the modern 
gentleman. 

Later periods, especially in the progress 
of manners in France, were propitious to 
the developement of refinement and a pol- 
ished deportment; but it was at the cost of 
morality, and took place under a daily 
growing despotism, which in its very nature 
is adverse to mutual reliance and acknow- 
ledgment, to candour and dignity of char- 
acter, however favourable it may be to 
stateliness of carriage. Veracity is a plant 
which grows in abundance on the soil of 
civil liberty alone. The character of the 
gentleman, such as we now know^ and 



THE GENTLEMAN. 33 

cherish it, was not therefore fairly devel- 
oped, before the popular institutions and a 
broader civil liberty in England added a 
more general consciousness of rights, with 
their acknowledgment in others, a general 
esteem for candour, self-respect and dignity, 
together with native English manliness and 
calmness, to the spirit of chivalry which, in 
some degree, was still traditional in the 
aristocracy, and to the courtesy of manners 
which perhaps had been adopted from 
abroad. The character of the cavalier was 
essentially aristocratic ; that of the gentle- 
man is rather of a popular cast, or of a 
civic nature, and shows in this, likewise, 
that it belongs to modern times. The 
cavalier distinguished himself by his dress 
— by plume, lace and cut; the gentleman 
shuns external distinction, and show^s his 
refinement within the limits of plain attire. 



34 THE CHARACTER OF 

The character of the g-entleman includes 
whatever was valuable in the cavalier and 
the earlier knight, but it stands above him, 
even with reference to that very element 
which constituted a chief attribute of the 
cavalier — to honour. Untarnished honour 
depends in a great measure upon truthful- 
ness, and it is a cheering fact, that the world 
has become far more candid within the last 
two centuries. The details of the history 
of domestic intercourse, of traffic, of judicial 
transactions and bribes, of parliamentary 
procedures, of high politics and interna- 
tional affairs, bear us out in this position, 
however painfully we may even now, far 
too frequently, be forced to observe infrac- 
tions of the sacred law of plain-dealing, 
religious candour and gentlemanly veracity. 

In ascribing greater veracity to the peo- 
ple of free countries in modern times, I may 



THE GENTLEMAN. 35 

appear to gainsay other and distinguished 
writers. Montaigne actually says, that we 
moderns punish the charge of a He so 
severely, which the ancients did not, be- 
cause we lie habitually much more, and 
must save appearances. But Montaigne 
wrote in France, at a very evil period, and 
we may well ask besides, whether antiquity 
with all its details was vivid in his mind 
when he penned that passage. If the 
position I have advanced be wrong, I have 
at any rate not hastily come to it. I am 
convinced that there is at present more 
truth in the intercourse of men, although 
we speak and write less bluntly. Who has 
studied history without meeting occasion- 
ally with acts of deception, which we find 
it difficult to understand, because at present, 
pubhc opinion would frown upon them, and 
utterly disgrace their authors ? 



36 THE CHARACTER OF 

Where so many important qualities and 
distinct attributes, held in high and common 
esteem, are blended into one character, we 
must be prepared to meet with correspond- 
ing* caricatures and mimicking impersona- 
tions of faulty, vicious or depraved dis- 
positions and passions. So is the saint's 
counterfeit the hypocrite ; the patriot is 
caricatured in the demagogue ; the thrifty 
husband in the miser ; the frank companion 
in the gossip; the chaste in the prude, 
and the conscientious in the pedantic ; the 
sincere reformer in the reckless Jackobin, 
and the cautious statesman or firm believer 
in the necessity of progressive improvement, 
distrusting abrupt changes, in the idolator 
of the past and the Chinese worshipper of 
the forefathers. In a similar manner, we 
find the sensitive honour of the gentleman 
counterfeited in the touchy duelist ; his 



THE GENTLEMAN. 37 

courage by the arrant bully ; his calmness 
of mind by supercilious or stolid indiffer- 
ence, or a fear of betraying- the purest 
emotions; his refinement of feeling', by 
sentimentality or affectation ; his polished 
manners by a punctilious observance of 
trivial forms; his ready comphance with 
conventional forms, in order to avoid notice 
or g*iving* offence to others, or his natural 
habit of moving- in those forms which have 
come to be estabhshed among* the accom- 
plished, by the silly hunter after new fash- 
ions, or a censurable and enfeebling* love 
of approbation ; his liberality by the spend- 
thrift; his dig-nity and self-respect by conceit 
or a dog-g-ed resistance to acknowledg-e 
error or wrong; his candour by an ill- 
natured desire of telling unwelcome truths; 
his freedom from petulance by incapacity 
of enthusiasm, and his composure by ego- 



38 THE CHARACTER OF 

tism. But these distorted reflections from 
a deforming- mirror do not detract from the 
real worth and the important attributes of 
the well-proportioned original ; nor can it 
be said that this character has been set up 
as a purely ethical model in spite of rehg-ion. 
I am convinced that it was possible to con- 
ceive this character in its fulness, only by 
the aid of Christianity, and beheve — I say 
it with bowing reverence — that in him to 
whom we look for the model of every per- 
fection, we also find the perfect type of 
that character which occupies our atten- 
tion. 

It seems then plain, that in placing before 
us the character of the gentleman as one of 
the models of excellence, we do not allow 
the nimble hand of neomaniac fashion to 
substitute a puny idol, decked with tinsel 
imitations of substantial gold, for the true 



THE GENTLEMAN. 39 

and lasting* patterns of virtue and religion ; 
nor can you fail to perceive the vast prac- 
tical importance of an active, ready, inv^ard 
gentlemanliness, from which a gentleman- 
like conduct as naturally results, as the 
spontaneous effect from any living*, healthy 
organism. 

In all spheres of our lives there occur 
many acts of so complex a nature, that, if 
they are submitted to a long process of 
reasoning, v^hich possibly may appear the 
more impartial, the more heartlessly it is 
undertaken, they will allow of a perplex- 
ing number of arguments, for and against, 
of bewildering precedents on either side, 
and of distinctions more embarrassing than 
unravelling, so that in the end we see our 
way less clearly than at the beginning — 
acts, from which, nevertheless, a mind 
instinct with genuine gendemanliness will 



40 THE CHARACTER OF 

shrink at once, as being* of doubtful can- 
dour, dangerous to honour, of suspicious 
honesty, or inclining to what is illiberal 
or undignified. No merchant or artizan, 
no advocate, statesman, teacher or minis- 
ter — no citizen, in whatever circle he may 
move — none of you in your preparatory 
spheres, can avoid being called upon 
promptly to decide in cases of this nature. 
Acts, somewhat tinctured with what we 
would call unhandsome, or slightly tainted 
with what may be mean, cannot always 
be distinctly discerned as such by the 
reasoning faculties, and all these acts are 
nevertheless dangerous, because they are 
infusions of impurity into our soul, where 
nothing is at rest, but every thing, good or 
evil, is in constant perfusing and assimila- 
ting activity — a psychological law which 
is subject to far fewer exceptions, if any, 



THE GENTLEMAN. 41 

than the corresponding- law of assimilation 
of matter in the animal body. 

History is full of these instances; daily 
life surrounds us with them^ and although 
the pure principles as well as precepts of 
religion are invaluable, and of primordial 
huportance to all ethic vitality, and for 
which indeed you can find no substitute, 
search where you may, yet a keen and 
instinctive sense and glowing love of hon- 
our, watchful and prompt self-respect, and 
habitual recoiling from what is low, vulgar, 
coarse and base in thought, feeling, deed 
or manner, form an active moral co-effi- 
cient, or,^ if I may say so, an additional 
faculty quickly to receive impressions, 
upon t^hich rehgious consciousness de- 
cides and works. 

Young gentlemen, a clear and vigorous 
intellect is, in the perceptioh and applicatiort 



42 THE CHARACTER OF 

of moral truths, as important as in any other 
sphere of thought or action, but the general 
state of the soul and the frame of mind 
are of greater importance, while no one 
will deny that gentlemanship, taken in the 
sense in which the word has been used 
here, contributes to a pure general frame 
of mind. Forgetting the primary impor- 
tance of the purity of the soul, and the 
belief that the morality of human acts is 
ascertained by a minute weighing of their 
possible effects upon others, and not upon 
the actor himself, or by subtle definitions 
of the millions of acts which may occur 
in our lives, is one of the radical and 
besetting vices of the Jesuitical casuists 
in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies, of an Escobar, Sa, Busenbaum 
Bauny, Suarez and innumerable other doc- 
tores graves ^ as they were styled by their 



THE GENTLEMAN. 43 

own order"^ — a vice which ultimately led 
them to rear their amazing* system of stu- 
pendous turpitude. 

It will be scarcely necessary here to 
mention the question unfortunately still at 
times moved, whether a man be safe if he 
make the law of the land the sole standard 
of his moral conduct. To put this ques- 
tion shows the utmost confusion of morals 
and politics, of the righteous and the legal, 
of the law written in our heart, and the 
statute printed in the book; of the com- 
mandments of virtue, the resistance to 
which must remain possible, or we should 
lose our moral character, and the ordi- 
nances of civil authority, which must be 
enforced and complied with, though it be 
only because a penalty threatens the trans- 

♦ Ellendorf, a Catholic priest and writer against their moraltiy 
and polity, mentions three hundred. 



44 THE CHARACTER QP 

pressor; of the codes by which fellow 
men judge a few acts of ours here beneath, 
and that one code by which our Maker 
judges our whole soul above. But it 
seems to be certain, that, comprehensive 
as this error be, a clear perception of the 
obhgations of the gentleman is one of the 
safeguards against falling into it. There 
are millions of actions which a gentleman 
cannot find the heart to perform, although 
the law of the land would permit them, 
and ought to permit them, lest an inter- 
meddling despotism should stifle all free- 
dom of action. Political and positive laws 
are not intended to be substitutes for our 
conscience, or the sole, or even the chief 
guides of our conduct through life. 

A man may be a heardess husband, a 
cruel or foolish father, a degenerate son, 
an unfeeling brother, an ungrateful pupil 



THE GENTLEMAN. 45 

or undutiful teacher; he may be a careless 
guardian, an irksome neighbour, a hard 
creditor or worthless citizen and unprin- 
cipled politician ; he may be uncharitable, 
coarse, captious, indolent, mean, false, 
cowardly, selfish, sordid and fanatical ; he 
may be intemperate, obscene and impious ; 
he may be morally and physically repul- 
sive in every way, and a hundred times 
worse than many whom the law has justly 
stricken, and yet may pass through life 
unscathed by justice, possibly for the very 
reason that he is a mean and selfish man, 
who knows well how to subordinate his 
passions to cold and calculating egotism. 
Justice and liberty cease that moment 
when the law strikes aught but palpable 
acts ; yet a person may leisurely travel the 
whole round of infamy and still guardedly 
keep from within striking distance of the 



46 THE CHARACTER OF 

law. It oug'ht to be so ; but the law does 
not sustain infamy on that account; the 
law is not the code of our soul ; the con- 
stable not the substitute for our conscience. 
My friends — and you permit me by this 
time to call you so — if you apply the char- 
acteristics of the gentleman as I have felt 
myself justified and obliged to point them 
out, to man's practical course, you will find, 
first as to our daily life and personal inter- 
course, that the calmness of mind, which 
we have acknowledged as a constituent of 
the character of the gentleman, naturally 
leads him to use temperate language and 
prevents him from indulging in careless 
vulgarity, unmanly exaggeration or violent 
coarseness. Dealing in superlatives, sub- 
stituting extravagant figures of speech for 
arguments or facts, and interweaving our 
discourse with words though of the grav- 



THE GENTLEMAN. 47 

est import, yet used as profane expletives, 
shows no g-reater want of taste than a con- 
sciousness of weakness, which may consist 
in the character of the speaker and the 
argument, or in his habitual consciousness 
that he is not able fully and forcibly to de- 
liver his thoughts and feelings. Men who 
are in the habit of thinking clearly and have 
learned to speak promptly, perspicuously 
and vigorously, are not those who deal in 
profane invocations or revolting impreca- 
tion, and it is an attribute of the accom- 
pHshed gentleman to deliver himself with 
propriety and to speak well, ^^ there being 
nothing more becoming a gentleman, nor 
more useful in all the occurrences of life, 
than to be able on any occasion to speak 
well and to the purpose." These are the 
words of a wise man and shrewd observer, 
of Locke in his Essay on Education, and 



48 THE CHARACTER OF 

if perhaps the philosopher alludes, in this 
passag^e, more particularly to speeches and 
debates proper, I must beg* you to observe 
likewise that, important though they be^ 
the daily conversation is more important, as 
the comfort, decency and salubrity of the 
common dv^ellings of men are still more 
important than the chaste propriety or 
lofty and commanding* style of public edi- 
fices.— The kindness of his feeling* prevents 
him from vaunting ; moroseness and asper- 
ity are foreig'n to him, and his forbearance 
as well as g'enerosity make him the safe 
keeper of secrets, even without the special 
exaction of secrecy. He is not meddlesotney 
and it is a principle with him not only to 
keep positive secrets, but to abstain from 
talking- about personal affairs of others as a 
general rule, to be suspended only when 
there is a positive and specific reason for 



THE GENTLEMAN. 49 

SO doing". The discourse of the g-entleman 
turns upon facts, not persons. He keeps a 
secret, even though it g'ive him power over 
an antag'onist, because a secret of this kind 
is power, and a generous use of all power 
is one of the essential attributes of the true 
gentleman. Nor does he indicate that he 
possesses a secret ; for, doing so is vanity, 
and conceit and vanity are vmdignified and 
lower the person that harbours them. His 
poHsh makes him the civil attendant upon 
the weaker sex, but his essential refine- 
ment does not allow him to carry this 
necessary element of all civilization to a de- 
gree of caricature, in treating women as if 
they were incapable of argument, and must 
forego the privilege of being dissented from, 
or of arriving at truth by their own rea- 
soning. He shows instinctive deference to 

old age, and respect to superior authority, 

7 



50 THE CHARACTER OF 

In discussions, be shows his true character 
not only by his caUnness and by abstaining 
from offensive positiveness, but also by the 
fairness of his arguments. He does not 
recur to those many fallacies which, though 
they belong to vulgar minds, or whose em- 
ployment shows that we consider our adver- 
saries as such, are, nevertheless, not with- 
out effect in brisk disputes. The well-bred 
gentleman gladly seizes upon those minor 
yet delicate attentions, which, though ap- 
parently trifling, are cheering tokens of a 
friendly heart, and may be compared to 
graceful flowerets growing by the roadside 
of the rugged and toilsome path of life. His 
habitual candour will make him, to use a 
familiar term, ^^ off-hand^' in his intercourse 
with friends ; he dehghts in serving others, 
and, in turn, feels the luxury of being grate- 
ful. Above all, it pains him to give pain ; and 



THE GENTLEMAN. 51 

he does and feels all that we have men- 
tioned without affectation, selfishness, dry- 
ness or pedantry. 

Let us, on the other hand, apply our prin- 
ciples to some of the most prominent profes- 
sions or situations in practical Hfe, such as it 
has formed itself with our race. Whichever 
field, young gentlemen, you may choose for 
your future labours in practical life, it is ne- 
cessary that you carry the standard of the 
gentleman with you, and that now, ere the 
temptations of busy hfe beset you, you fix 
it firmly in your soul by daily repeated prac- 
tice. 

Those of you who intend to become di- 
vines, must remember that the whole char- 
acter and meaning of the minister's caUing 
is founded upon a constant intercourse with 
men, whom he has to teach, to guide, to 
save — an intercourse depending for its use- 



52 THE CHARACTER OF 

fulness upon the confidence reposed in his 
sincerity of faith^ purity of morals^ pru- 
dence and honourable bearing". You will 
have no other power to support you. The 
government does not build your churches. 
If a congregation are convinced that their 
pastor is a true christian, a learned divine, 
and a perfect gentleman, he has the strong- 
est hold on their confidence in him. He 
must not forget that the pulpit gives him a 
periodical and frequent opportunity of speak- 
ing to large numbers without reply. This 
is power, and requires, like every power, 
to be wielded in a gentlemanlike manner, 
if its possessor wishes to secure himself 
against his own abuse of it. If, on the other 
hand, the divine descends into the arena of 
controversy, which, however undesirable, 
it does not always depend upon him to 
avoid, he can hardly inflict a severer injury 



THE GENTLEMAN. 53 

upon his sacred cause, than by exhibiting* 
to the world, and caUing- forth in his adver- 
saries, bitterness of spirit, unfairness of ar- 
gument, or passionate, gross and abusive 
languag-e, in short the conduct ^^unbecom- 
ing a gentleman." The great cause of the 
Reformation was immeasurably injured by 
the undignified and even scun^ilous charac- 
ter of many controversial writings on both 
sides, in a degree which makes us still bear 
the sad consequences, and which greatly 
interfered with the diffusion of truth over 
Europe. Let no one persuade you that this 
vehemence, as the ungentleraanly bitter- 
ness and rudeness is sometimes called by 
way of euphemism, was necessary against 
violent enemies, and according to the spirit 
of the times. It is as bigoted as to say that 
so false-hearted and sanguinary a despot 
as Henry the Eighth, was necessary to 



54 THE CHARACTER OF 

break up the convents. No great and en- 
during- cause stands in need of low or ini- 
quitous means ; and every low, vulgar or 
heartless word engenders two and three 
in reply. That which is great and true is 
best promoted by means high and pure. 

Others of you will enter the profession 
of the law. They will avoid many dangers 
incident to this profession, by loyally ad- 
hering to the character of the gentleman. 
The advocate, in our country and in Eng- 
land, enjoys high privileges, that is power. 
Probably it is not desirable or feasible to 
check its abuse in all cases ; at any rate, as 
matters stand, he can frequently abuse it 
without the probability of being restrained. 
It becomes, therefore, the more necessary 
that he check himself. I do not now speak 
of that in a lawyer's practice, which is cen- 
surable upon the broad and immutable prin- 



THE GENTLEMAN. 55 

ciples of morality, and from which the pro- 
fession of the advocate does no more absolve 
than any other calling*. What a deg*rada- 
tion of the lawyer, if, like the Japanese wife, 
he were incapable of doing* wrong* ! Nor 
do I speak of ^4hose too common faults," as 
the g-reat lawyer, Matthew Hale, said, ^^ of 
misrepresenting* evidence, quoting* prece- 
dents or books falsely, or asserting* any- 
thing* confidently by which ig-norant juries 
or weak judges are too often wrought 
upon.""^ I believe these trespasses are 
now far rarer. Nor shall I dwell upon the 
fact that a gentlemanly spirit must needs be 
a safeguard against becoming a ^^ leguleius 
quidam cautus et acutus, prseco actionum, 
cantor formularum, auceps syllabarum.'^t 

* Burnet's Life of Sir Matthew Hale, p. 72. 
t Cicero, in Oratore, fragm. ap. Augustin I, 3 contra Acad, 
c. 7. 



56 THE CHARACTER OF 

The pettifogg*er and the legicrepa^ as the 
Low Latin had it, are the opposites to the 
gentleman advocate — one of the finest types 
of the citizen of a free country. Nor need 
I mention that it is incumbent upon a judg-e 
to move scrupulously within the hmits of 
the g-entleman, if it be incumbent upon any 
one in the wide range of civilized society. 
I pass over all this as plainly obvious ; but 
I must mention to you, inexperienced as 
you are, that lawyers not unfrequently here 
and in England, allow their zeal for the cli- 
ent or the prosecution, to make them visibly 
swerve from the path of the gentleman. 
However close and searching your exam- 
ination of a witness may be, you are bound 
by all the laws of morality, by all the prin- 
ciples of high-mindedness and the very 
meaning of the institution of the advocate 
itself, to behave as gentlemen toward him, 



THE GENTLEMAN. 57 

whom the laws of your society place for a 
time in an irksome situation, and make de- 
pendant upon you. 

An occurrence, which happened not long* 
ag-o in Eng^land, may find here an appropri- 
ate place, as a warning* to those who, at no 
distant period, will enjoy the privileg"es of 
counsel in the sacred halls of justice ; but to 
avoid being- misunderstood, you must per- 
mit me first distinctly to state, that I think 
it absolutely necessary that every indicted 
prisoner have his defender, that is counsel 
learned in the law, who, however criminal 
or obviously convicted his client may stand 
at the bar of justice, shall still watch that the 
prisoner receive nothing* but what the law 
decrees, and enjoy all the advantag-es which 
the law may positively g'rant or not posi- 
tively withhold.^ In order to obtain this 

* I have fully given my views on this subject in the chapter 
on the Advocate in Political Ethics. 

8 



58 THE CHARACTER OF 

important end in all its fulness, it is neces- 
sary that every advocate consider himself 
pledged to grant his services to whomso- 
ever may apply for them. The ^^ custom" 
of the English bar, settled by repeated de- 
cisions of the bar itself, is to accept any 
retainer as it comes. It is considered '^ un- 
gentlemanly'' not to do it, unless there be 
particular and urgent reasons for declining, 
such as abhorrence of the very principle to 
be established. It happened in Erskine's 
life that he was retained for ^^ the First Regi- 
ment of Guards f but it was found that the 
^^ first regiment of guards" is no legal per- 
son that can appear in court. It became 
necessary, therefore, to change the name of 
the complainants from the first regiment of 
guards to that of individual persons. The 
attorney of the opposite party sent, at once, 
his retainer to Erskine ; for, he was no longer 



THE GENTLEMAN. 59 

retained by the regiment, and not yet again 
retained by the persons substituted for it; 
andj however distasteful to the great advo- 
cate this particular case happened to be, he 
declared — and it is the general opinion in 
England — that it is one of the most impor- 
tant rights of the subject, that every advocate 
must allow himself to be retained, so long 
as he is not retained by the opposite side. 

If an advocate happen to know the foul- 
ness of a transaction which he is called 
upon to defend, he must decline, but in 
doing so, the utmost circumspection and a 
very high degree of conviction are requi- 
site ; for, he must not forget that by his 
declining, he in a degree prejudges a case 
yet to be tried. It is in this sense, I be- 
lieve, that we must imderstand the words 
of Tronchet, the counsel of Louis the Six- 
teenth, when at the bar of the Convention. 



60 THE CHARACTER OP 

Tronchet said : '^ Every man thus publicly 
called upon to defend an accused person, 
cannot decline his services without taking* 
upon himself the responsibility of pronoun- 
cing* a judgment — precipitate (his word is 
temerairej) before the examination of the 
case, and barbarous, after it." There is 
no fairer occurrence in our Revolution, 
than the defence of the British soldiers 
who had fired upon the people, by John 
Adams and Mr. Q^uincy, both ardent pa- 
triots, and for that reason implored by the 
father of the latter not to defend ^^mur- 
derers." They simply answered that the 
soldiers had not yet been tried. It was 
noble when Mr. de Martig-nac, dismissed 
from the ministry by prince Polignac, 
nevertheless defended the latter after the 
revolution of 1830, because called upon 
to do so by PoHgnac, when arraigned 



THE GENTLEMAN. 61 

before the peers. All this is as it ought 
to be, but the advocate is not therfore 
absolved from moral obligations, as the 
barrister in the case alluded to must have 
presumed. This is the case: 

In the year 1840, a man, named Cour- 
voisier, murdered lord William Russell. 
His counsel received a full confession from 
the prisoner twenty-four hours before the 
trial. The barrister stated the fact to the 
judge, who told him ^^ to do his best," 
according to custom. And what did he 
do, who seems first to have doubted the 
propriety of defending a confessed crimi- 
nal ? He presented one of the witnesses, 
Mrs. Priolans, a woman of unblemished 
character, who kept a respectable board- 
ing house, as having perjured herself, and 
keeping a house of the worst character; 
he called the police-men ruffians, a gang 



62 THE CHARACTER OF 

of blockheads, panting* for rewards, though 
he knew that the poUce no long-er accept 
of rewards, and treated Courvoisier's fe- 
male servant most unwarrantably.^ I 
abstain from giving- you the name of him 
who was guilty of conduct so shameless; 
for, he is yet living and may repent. We 
hope he may. His conduct is so revolting, 
that ingenious youth may ask, why I relate 
an occurrence so obviously criminal, that it 
stands on a par with any other criminal 
deviation from the path of rectitude? I 
do it, because this barrister is one of no 
common standing, and of established name, 
who seems to have fallen into this grievous 
offence from an incorrect view of the 
duties of counsel, and because he could not 
have fallen into it, had he felt like a gen- 

* I follow in this relation the papers and reviews, such as the 
Edinburgh, oi the time. 



THE GENTLEMAN. 63 

tleman. If advocates were the only per- 
sons on earth who stand absolved from the 
obligations of truth, morality and justice, 
society would have placed itself under a 
most deg'rading and absurd despotism, and 
their whole order ought speedily to be 
aboHshed. Yet it is a fact that the insti- 
tution of the advocate exists everywhere 
along* with civil liberty, and is indispen- 
sable to it;^ therefore, let them be gentle- 
men. 

* I have dwelt oa this subject more at length in the chapters 
on the Judge, Jury and Advocate in Political Ethics. The 
enenoies of civil liberty know well the importance oi the insti- 
tution of the advocate for civil liberty. Archbishop Laud and 
earl Strafford show, in their correspondence, the most^ invete- 
rate hatred against lawyers, without whom, they confess to 
each other, it would be easy to establish the king's *' absolute" 
sovereignty, their adored idol ; and Duclos (page 335, vol. 76, 
of Collect, des Memoires, second series,) says that the foreign 
ministers applauded, in the name of their masters, the regent, 
duke of Orleans, for having repressed ces Icgistes, (in 1718,) that 
is, having incarcerated three presidents of the parliament. 
Laud and Strafford, however, ought not to have forgotten those 
lawyers, who, as Audley, successor to sir Thomas More, urged 
it as a claim to promotion, "had willingly incurred all manner 
of infamy to serve the government." 



64 THE CHARACTER OF 

The prosecuting' officer, on the other 
hand, must not forget that the indicted 
person is placed in his power, which he 
may abuse, seriously, scandalously and in 
an ungentlemanly manner, as history most 
amply shows; that the prisoner is yet to 
be tried; that the object of the trial is 
justice, not to oppress, worry or hunt down 
the prisoner, or to asperse his character 
so foully, that though he may be acquit- 
ted, his reputation may be ruined for life, 
and that too, perhaps, merely by insinua- 
tions. In the course of your studies you 
will find instances of what I say in sir 
Edward Coke and in Bacon — him, who 
would never have been so deplorably 
wrecked that he saved naught but immor- 
tal fame of intellect, had he felt like a 
gentleman instead of cringing before a 
James and fawning upon a Buckingham, 



THE GENTLEMAN. 65 

being* ready for their meanest and their 
darkest work. Bacon was void of dignity 
and honour."^— Earl Strafford said after his 
trial for high treason : ^^ Glynne and May- 
nard have used me like advocates, but 
Palmer and Whitelock like g'entlemen, and 
yet left out nothing* that was material to be 
urged ag-ainst me.'' Does not every one 
understand at once what he meant 7 And 
do not my hearers feel that Strafford him- 
self, in uttering these words, felt that fair- 
ness and liberality of judgment which is 
^^ becoming a gentleman'?'' 

Do not believe that you will lastingly 
promote even your worldly interests as 
lawyers, by any infraction of the strictest 



* With sadness, indeed, we find a new and appalling con- 
firmation of Pope's ''greatest, meanest of mankind," in the 
lately renewed inquiry into the trial of the duchess of Somerset, 
for the murder of Overbury. 

9 



66 



THE CHARACTER OF 



rules of a gentlemanly conduct. Every 
advocate of experience, I venture to say, 
will tell you that a fairly established repu- 
tation as g-entlemen will be an efficient 
ag-ent in promoting* your career as lawyers. 
The healing- art stands no less in need 
of being* practised by gendemen than the 
law. In no profession is a constant acting 
upon the strictest principles of gentleman- 
liness more indispensable in a general 
point of view, as well as with especial 
reference to professional success, than in 
the practice of medicine and surgery. We 
know, indeed, that there have been phy- 
sicians of eminence, who have signalized 
themselves alike by professional skill and 
commensurate success on the one hand, 
and offensive bluntness on the other ; but 
we know, too, that instead of following out 
their noble missions of alleviating suffer- 



THE GENTLEMAN. 67 

ing-, in all its details, they have wantonly 
added to the affliction of their patients, and 
that the very highest deg-ree of skill and 
knowledge was requisite to counterbal- 
ance the evil consequences of their un- 
gentlemanly manners. I speak of man- 
ners only; for if the physician be void of 
the principles of the gentleman, his ruin 
must be the inevitable consequence. The 
aim of the healing* art is to cure or alleviate 
human suffering- in this hfe in w4iich it is 
the lot of man to suffer much — to healj as 
the name imports, and the medical adviser 
efficiently aids his purely therapeutic efforts, 
by soothing* the heart of the patient and 
comforting the anxious souls of those who 
watch the sick-bed in distress and gloom. 
I do not know that man can appear in a 
brighter phase than as a physician, full of 
knowledge and skill, calm, careful; bold, 



68 THE CHARACTER OP 

and with the soothing* adjuncts of gentle- 
manly blandness. The physician, more- 
over, must needs be admitted, not only 
into the recess of the sick-chamber, but 
very frequently into the recesses of his 
patient's heart, and into the sanctuary of 
domestic life with its virtues and its fail- 
ing's and frailties. If he do not carry with 
him the standard of the purest honour; if he 
take the slig"hest advantage of his position; 
if he fail to keep what he sees and hears 
buried in secrecy as inviolable as that of 
the confessor ; if he expose what must be 
revealed to him, he falls from his high 
station and becomes an afflicting injurer 
and sower of evil instead of a comforter, 
allaying pain and stilling sorrow where he 
can. The effect of a gentlemanly spirit 
and consequent manners is even great in 
that branch of the healing art in which you 



THE GENTLEMAN. 69 

may least expect it — in surgery. I have 
passed months in hospitals, and have had 
ample opportunity to observe the different 
effects produced upon the patients, though 
soldiers they were, during serious opera- 
tions, even the amputation of limbs, by 
kindly, gentlemanly surgeons, and by those 
who chilled their victim's heart with gruff 
words, or handled him with hasty and 
mechanic hands. How gratefully do the 
poverty-stricken remember a kind word of 
the physican under whose care they have 
been in the hospital ! How lasting an 
impression of horror does the harshness 
of those physicians produce who make the 
patient bitterly feel his poverty in wealth 
and friends, in addition to his bodily pain 
and an aching heart! 

Some of you, no doubt, will become 
editors of newspapers. The journal has 



70 THE CHARACTER OF 

become a prominent agent of modern civili- 
zation, and the editor holds great power in 
comparison with his fellow-citizens. He 
daily speaks to many ; he can reiterate ; he 
is supported by the weight which, however 
unfomided the opinion may be, is attached 
by the minds of almost all men to every 
thing printed, over that which is merely 
spoken ; and he is sure that the contradic- 
tion of what he states will not run precisely 
in the same channels, through which the 
first assertion was conveyed. All this, and 
the consideration that the daily repeated 
tone in which a paper publishes or dis- 
cusses the many occurrences of the day 
produces a sure effect upon the general 
tone of the community, ought to warn an 
editor, that if the obligations of a gentle- 
man are binding upon any one, they are 
indubitably so upon him. The evil influ- 



THE GENTLEMAN. 71 

ence which some papers in our country, 
very active^ but very ung-entlemanhke, have 
already exercised upon our community can- 
not be denied. Let me in addition single 
out but one pecuhar appUcation of the g*en- 
eral duty of editors always to conduct their 
papers as g'entlemen — I mean the abstain- 
ing* from unauthorized publication of pri- 
vate letters, confidential conversations, and 
in g*eneral, from any exposure of strictly 
private affairs. The publishing* of private 
letters, indelicately authorized by those to 
whom they are addressed, is a failing* of 
more frequent occurrence in this than in 
any other country, and no gentlemanly edi- 
tor will give his aid in thus confounding 
public and private life, deteriorating public 
taste and trespassing upon a sacred right 
of others, as clearly pronounced and pro- 
tected by positive law, as it obviously flows 



72 THE CHARACTER OF 

from the nature of the case — the distinct 
rule that the writer's consent is necessary 
for a lawful publication of letters. "^ It was 
necessary to mention this palpable infrac- 
tion of a g-entlemanly conduct ; but it is so 
obvious a deviation from the regard, which 
one gentleman owes to another, that, once 
being mentioned, it is unnecessary to say 
anything more about it. 

That the universal obligation of veracity 
is most emphatically binding upon the edi- 
tor, is evident, but it does not belong exclu- 
sively to the subject of gentlemanship. The 
subject of veracity is as general, compre- 
hensive and elemental, in the moral world 
and all human life, as that of light is in all 
physical science and the life of nature. 

* There is an interesting account of the decisions and the law 
as it now stands in England, on "the Copyright of Private Let- 
ters," appended by the bishop of LlandaiF, to the Letters of the 
Earl of Dudley, new edition, London, 1841. 



THE GENTLEMAN. 73 

A most important subject yet remains for 
our consideration, — the character of the 
g*entleman with reference to poHtics or the 
public hfe of the citizen ; but I have de- 
tained you ah'eady so much beyond the 
time, during- which I expected to put your 
patience to a test, that I am constrained to 
limit myself to a hasty sketch of a very few 
subjects only, connected with that immedi- 
ately in hand. 

The greater the liberty is which we en- 
joy in any sphere of life, the more binding*, 
necessarily, becomes the oblig-ation of self- 
restraint, and, consequently, the more im- 
portant all the rules of action which flow 
from our reverence for the pure character 
of the g*entleman — an importance w^hich is 
enhanced in the present period of our coun- 
try, because one of its striking* features, if I 

mistake not, is an intense and general atten- 

10 



74 THE CHARACTER OP 

tion to rights, without a parallel and propor- 
tionately clear perception of correspond- 
ing- obligations. But right and obligation 
are twins — they are like the binary flames 
of Castor and Pollux, which the sailors of 
the Mediterranean consider as a sure sign 
of fair weather and prosperous winds ; but 
if one alone is seen illumining the yard's 
end, the mariner fears foul weather and 
danger. Right and obligation are each 
other's complements, and cannot be severed 
without undermining the ethical ground on 
which we stand — that ground on which 
alone civilization, justice, virtue and real 
progress can build enduring monuments. 
Right and obligation are the warp and the 
woof of the tissue of man's moral, and 
therefore likewise of man's civil life. Take 
out the one^ and the other is in worthless 
confusion. We must return to this moment- 



THE GENTLEMAN. 75 

ous principle, the first of all moral govern- 
ment, and, as fairness and calmness are 
two prominent ingredients in the character 
of the gentleman, it is plain that this reform 
must be materially promoted by a general 
diffusion of a sincere regard for that char- 
acter. Liberty, which is the enjoyment of 
unfettered action, necessarily leads to li- 
centiousness, without an increased binding 
power within ; for Hberty offers to man, in- 
deed, a free choice of action, but it cannot 
absolve him from the duty of choosing what 
is right, fair, liberal, urbane and handsome. 
Where there is freedom of action, no 
matter in what region or what class of 
men, there always have been, and must 
be, parties, w^hether they be called party, 
school, sect, or ^^ faction.'' ^ These will 

* In the conclave the cardinals used to divide into Spanish, 
French, etc. factions, i. e. parties ; possibly they do so still. 



76 THE CHARACTER OF 

necessarily often act against each other; 
but, as a matter of course, they are not 
allowed to dispense with any of the princi- 
ples of morality. The principle that every- 
thing* is permitted in poHtics is so shameless, 
and ruinous to all, that I need not dwell 
upon it here."^ But there are a great many 

* An unprincipled politician says, every thing is fair in poli- 
tics; fanatics and hypocrites have spoken of ''pious frauds;" 
sanctimonious shopkeepers allow of no deceit except " a trick in 
trade ;" the commentator of the English Law says, a little wrong 
may be done that great good may be obtained ; a disloyal hus- 
band keeps " honour bright," except a little cheating toward his 
wife. Lord Brougham said, in the trial of queen Caroline, 
The advocate has no other consideration on earth than to save 
his client, though he should set his whole country on fire. Con- 
spirators as well as princes have dispensed with the binding 
power of the oath, and pupils have believed that a lie is shame- 
ful everywhere except if proffered to a teacher; citizens, other- 
wise fair in a considerable degree, have believed that the dictates 
of honesty are not binding in the custom house, or when dealing 
w4th the post office, while fashionable people consider an occa- 
sional untruth as harmless, and De Foe, a noble character in 
the history of literature, believed himself justified, because aid- 
ing a poor bookseller nearly ruined by the publication of a work 
on death, in giving the fictitious account of a returning spirit, 



THE GENTLEMAN. 77 

acts Vv^hich, thoug"h it may not be possible 
to prove them wrong- according* to the strict 
laws of ethics, nevertheless appear at once 
as unfair, not strictly honourable, ungentle- 
manlike ; and it is of the utmost importance 
to the essential prosperity of a free country 
that these acts should not be resorted to ; 
that in the minor or higher assemblies and 
in all party struggles, even the intensest, 
we ought never to abandon the standard 
of the gentleman. It is all-important that 
parties keep in ^^good humour,'' as lord Cla- 
rendon said of the whole country. One 
deviation from fairness, candour, decorum 
and " fair play," begets another and worse 

which recommends the mentioDed work as perfectly accurate, 
with such appearance of truth, that, according to English wri- 
ters, it is believed by thousands to this day. Many persons, dis- 
countenancing deceit in all spheres of action, think it admissi- 
ble in international intercourse. Where then remains truth 1 
All morality becomes a thing binding upon every one — except 
in his own particular case, consequently upon no one. 



78 THE CHARACTER OF 

in the opponent, and from the kindhest dif- 
ference of opinion to the fiercest strug'gle 
of factions, sword in hand, is but one un- 
broken gradual descent, however great the 
distance may be, while few things are surer 
to forestall or arrest this degeneracy than 
a common and hearty esteem of the char- 
acter of the gentleman, We have in our 
country a noble example of calmness, truth- 
fulness, dignity, fairness and urbanity — 
constituents of the character which we are 
considering — in the father of our country; 
for Washington, the wise and steadfast pa- 
triot, was also the high-minded gentleman. 
When the malcontent officers of his army 
informed him that they would lend him 
their support, if he were willing to build 
himself a throne, he knew how to blend 
the dictates of his oath to the common- 
wealth, and of his patriotic heart, with 



THE GENTLEMAN. 79 

those of a g'entlemanly feeling* toward the 
deluded and irritated. In the sense in 
which w^e take the term here^ it is not the 
least of his honours that, throug"h all the trv- 
ing* periods and scenes of his remarkable 
life, the historian and moralist can write 
him down, not only as Washing-ton the 
Wise, not only as Washington the Pure 
and Sing-le-minded, but also as Washington 
the Gentleman. 

If in a countiy of varied, quick and 
ardent political action and manifold excite- 
ment, in which changes and new combina- 
tions must often take place, the standard 
of the high-bred gentleman be abandoned, 
the effect is as baneful as that of a prying 
and falsifying secret police in despotic gov- 
ernments. Mr. Ranke relates, in his His- 
tory of the Popes, that the utmost caution 
of each to every one prevailed in Rome, 



80 THE CHARACTER OP 

because no one knew how he might stand 
with his best friend, in a year's time. The 
same destruction of confidence and mutual 
reliance must spread over the land where 
freedom reigns, but a gentlemanly char- 
acter does not at the same time prevail. 
Lord Shaftesbury, the brilliant, energetic 
and reckless Alcibiades of English history, 
rigidly observed the rule, during' all his ter- 
giversations, '' that he never betrayed the 
secrets of a party he had left, or made 
harsh personal observations on the conduct 
of his old friends ; not only trying to keep 
up a familiar private intercourse with them, 
but abstaining from vindictive reflections 
upon them in his speeches or his writings.''^ 

* Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors. Vol. iii. p. 290. 
I am aware that sir Samuel Romilly took a somewhat different 
view of the blending of private intercourse with political oppo- 
sition, as appears from his Life and Correspondence by his son ; 
but 1 believe the difference is more apparent than real, as would 
seem from his own life. 



THE GENTLEMAN. 81 

This observance and his Habeas Corpus 
Act g-o far with us in redeeming* the char- 
acter of this proflig-ate and unprincipled 
statesman. If you wish to see the disas- 
trous effects of a g-eneral destruction of con- 
fidence and mutual rehance, you must study 
Spanish history; for, I beheve that the worst 
effect of the Inquisition has been the total 
change of the Spanish national character. 
Even dukes became spies, and that noble 
nation was filled with truculent suspicion, 
in the dark shades of which the character 
of the g-endeman can not prosper. 

I must not omit mentioning at least, the 
importance of a gentlemanly spirit in all in- 
ternational transactions with sister nations 
of our race — and even with tribes which 
follow different standards of conduct and 
morality. Nothing seems to me to show 

more undeniably the real progress which 

11 



82 THE CHARACTER OF 

human society has made, than the general 
purity of judg-es,^ together with the im- 
provement of the whole administration of 
justice, so far at least as the leading nations 
are concerned, and the vastly improved 
morals of modern international intercourse, 
holding diplomatic fraud and international 
trickery, bullying, and pettifogging, as no 
less unwise than immoral. History, and 
that of our own times, especially, teaches 
us that nowhere is the vapouring bragga- 
docio more out of place, and the true gen- 
tleman more in his proper sphere, than in 
conducting international affairs. Fairness 

* I have lived for long periods in Italy, Germany, France, 
England and the United States, and never heard, in the four 
last mentioned countries, of a judge suspected of bribery. Yet, 
only a short period has elapsed since satire and comedy teemed 
with the standing subjects of bribed judges, criminal advocates, 
and irksome wedlock, and lord Campbell, in the work cited in 
the preceding note, says, "England, during the Stuart reigns, 
was cursed by a succession of ruffians in ermine, who, for the 
sake of court-favour, violated the principles of law, the precepts- 
of religion and the dictates of humanity." 



THE GENTLEMAN. 83 



on the one hand, and collected self-respect 
on the other, will frequently make matters 
easy, where swag-gering- taunt, or reckless 
conceit and insulting folly, may lead to the 
serious misunderstanding* of entire nations, 
and a sang*uinary end. The firm and dig-- 
nified carriage of our senate, and the ab- 
sence of petty passion, or vain-gloriousness 
in the British parliament, have brought the 
Oregon question to a fair and satisfactory 
end — an affair which, but a short time ago, 
was believed by many to be involved in 
difficulties which the sword alone was able 
to cut short. Even genuine personal ur- 
banity in those to whom international af- 
fairs are entrusted, is very frequently of the 
last importance for a happy ultimate good 
understanding between the mightiest na- 
tions. 

We may express a similar opinion with 



84 THE CHARACTER OF 

reference to war. Nothing* mitig'ates so 
much its hardships, and few things, de- 
pending upon individuals, aid more in pre- 
paring* a welcome peace, than a gentle- 
manly spirit in the commanders, officers, 
and, indeed, in all the combatants toward 
their enemies, whenever an opportunity 
offers itself. I might give you many strik- 
ing proofs, but I observe that the clepsydra 
is nearly run out. Let me merely add, as 
a fact worthy of notice, that political assas- 
sination, especially in times of war, was 
not looked upon in antiquity as inadmissi- 
ble; that sir Thomas More mentions the 
assassination of the hostile captain, as a 
wise measure resorted to by his Utopians ; 
that queen Ehzabeth called sir Amyas 
Paulet, ^^ a dainty fellow," because he was 
unwilling to lend a hand in ridding her of 
the captive Mary, queen of Scots, and 



THE GENTLEMAN. 85 

cardinal Retz quietly weighed the expe- 
diency of EQurdering* cardinal Mazarin, his 
successful rival in the civil broils of France ; 
that the ambassadors of the British parlia- 
ment, and later, the commonwealth-men 
in exile, were picked off by assassination ; 
while Charles Fox, during* the war with the 
French, arrested the man who offered to 
assassinate Napoleon, informed the French 
government of the fact, and sent the man 
out of the country ;^ and admiral lord St. 
Vincent, the stern enemy of the French, 
directed his secretary to write the follow- 
ing answer to a similar offer, made by a 
French emigrant: ^^Lord St. Vincent has 
not words to express the detestation in 
which he holds an assassin.''! Fox and 



* Pell's Life of Charles James Fox, p. 592. 
t Tucker, Memoirs of Admiral the Earl St. Vincenl, vol. i. 
p. 203. 



86 THE CHARACTER OP 

Vincent acted like christians and gentle- 
men. 

I have mentioned two cheering* charac- 
teristics of our period, showing" an essen- 
tial prog-ress in our race. I ought to add a 
third, namely, the more gentlemanly spirit 
which pervades modern penal laws. I am 
well aware that the whole system of puni- 
tion has greatly improved, because men 
have made penology a subject of serious 
reflection, and the utter fallacy of many 
principles, in which our forefathers seriously 
beUeved, has at length been exposed. But 
it is at the same time impossible to study 
the history of penal law without clearly 
perceiving that punishments were formerly 
dictated by a vindictive ferocity — an un- 
gentlemanly spirit of oppression. All the 
accumulated atrocities heaped upon the 
criminal, and not unfrequently upon his in- 



THE GENTLEMAN. 87 

nocent kin, merely because he was what 
now g-ently would be called ^^ in the oppo- 
sition," make us almost hear the enraged 
punisher vulgarly utter : " Now I have you, 
and you shall see how I'll manage you." 
Archbishop Laud, essentially not a gentle- 
man, but a vindictive persecutor of every 
one who dared to differ from his coarse 
views of state and church, presided in the 
star-chamber and animated its members, 
when lord keeper Coventry pronounced 
the following sentence on Dr. Alexander 
Leighton, a Scottish divine, for slandering 
prelacy : ^^ that the defendant should be 
imprisoned in the Fleet during life — should 
be fined ten thousand pounds — and, after 
being degraded from holy orders by the 
high commissioners, should be set in the 
pillory in Westminster — there be whipped 
— after being whipped, again be set in the 



88 THE CHARACTER OF 

pillory — have one of his ears cut off— 
have his nose slit — be branded in the face 
with a double S. S., for a Sower of Sedi- 
tion — afterwards be set in the pillory in 
Cheapside, and there be whipped, and after 
being* whipped, ag*ain be set in the pillory 
and have his other ear cut off." The whole 
council agreed. There was no recom- 
nnendation to pardon or mitig'ation. The 
sentence was inflicted. Could a gentle- 
man have proposed or voted for so brutal 
an accumulation of pain, insult, mutilation 
and ruin, no matter what the fundamental 
errors prevailing* in penal law then were? 
Nor have I selected this, from other sen- 
tences, for its peculiar cruelty. Every stu- 
dent of history knows that they were com- 
mon at the time, ag*ainst all who offended 
authority even unknowingly. Stubbs, a 
divine in the reign of queen Elizabeth, was 



THE GENTLEMAN. 89 

sentenced to have his right hand cut off, 
because, when the marriage of the queen 
with a French prince was discussing, he 
had ventured to express, in a pamphlet, his 
fears of the danger to which the queen 
would expose herself in possible child- 
bed, on account of her age. She was then 
between forty and fifty. Yet, when the 
executioner had severed his hand, he 
waved his hat with the remaining left, and 
exclaimed, Long Vive the queen ! Com- 
pare the spirit which could overwhelm a 
victim with such brutahty, and the brand- 
ing, pillory and whipping still existing 
in many countries, with the spirit of calm- 
ness, kindness, yet seriousness and dignity 
which pervades such a punitory scheme 
as the Pennsylvania eremitic penitentiary 
system, which, for the very reason that it 

is gentlemanly, is the most impressive and 

12 



90 THE CHARACTER OF 

penetrating-, therefore the most forbidding' 
of all 

Let me barely allude to the duties of the 
gentleman in those countries in which 
slavery still exists. Plato says,^ genuine 
humanity and real probity are brought to 
the test, by the behaviour of a man to 
slaves, whom he may wrong with impunity. 
He speaks like a gentleman. Although 
his golden rule applies to all whom we 
may offend or grieve with impunity, and 
the fair and reluctant use of any power we 
may possess, is one of the truest tests of 
the gentleman, yet it is natural that Plato 
should have made the treatment of the 
slave the peculiar test, because slavery 
gives the greatest power. Cicero says we 
should use slaves no otherwise than we 
do our day-labourers.t I have stated al- 

* De Legibus, lib. vi. edi. Bipont, viii. 203. 
t De Officiis^ xiii. 



THE GENTLEMAN. 91 

ready that the forbearing* use of power is 
a sure attribute of the true gentleman; 
indeed, we may say that power, physical, 
moral, purely social or political, is one of 
the touchstones of genuine gentleman- 
ship. The power which the husband has 
over his wife, in which we must include 
the impunity with which he may be unkind 
to her ; the father over his children ; the 
teacher over his pupils ; the old over the 
young and the young over the aged ; the 
strong over the weak ; the officer over his 
men ; the master of a vessel over his hands; 
the magistrate over the citizen ; the em- 
ployer over the employed ; the rich over 
the poor; the educated over the unlettered ; 
the experienced over the confiding; the 
keeper of a secret over him whom it 
touches ; the gifted over the ordinary man ; 
even the clever over the silly — the for- 



92 THE CHARACTER OF 

bearing* and inoffensive use of all this 
power or authority, or a total abstinence 
from it, where the case admits it, will show 
the g*entleman in a plain lig'ht. Every 
traveller knows at once, whether a gen- 
tlemanly or rude officer is searching* his 
trunk. But the use of power does not 
only form a touchstone ; even the manner 
in which an individual enjoys certain ad- 
vantag*es over others is a test. No gen- 
tleman can boast of the delig-hts of superior 
health in presence of a languid patient, or 
speak of great good luck when in hearing 
of a man bent by habitual misfortune. Let 
a man, who happily enjoys the advantages 
of a pure and honest life, speak of it to a 
fallen, criminal fellow being, and you will 
soon see whether he be, in addition to his 
honesty, a gentleman or not. The gen- 
tleman does not needlessly and unceasingly 



THE GENTLEMAN. 93 

remind an offender of a wrong" he may 
have committed against him. He can, not 
only forgive, he can forget ; and he strives 
for that nobleness of soul and manliness of 
character, which impart sufficient strength 
to let the past be truly past. He will never 
use the power which the knowledge of 
an offence, a false step or an unfortunate 
exposure of weakness give him, merely to 
enjoy the power of humiUating his neigh- 
bor. A true man of honour feels humbled 
himself, when he cannot help humbling 
others. 

The subject which I have chosen covers 
so extensive a ground, that it is difficult 
to break off or select the most important 
points. Give me leave, then, young gen- 
tlemen, to refer to but one more subject of 
practical importance, before I shall address 
to you my concluding remarks. It is the 



94 THE CHARACTER OF 

subject of deriding* others, so natural to 
untutored minds, yet so inconsistent with a 
truly gentlemanly spirit, because so painful, 
and generally so undeservedly painful, to 
those who are the objects of our deriding 
smiles. A very few reflections will show 
you that they are not agreeable to that 
genuine good nature, and still less conform- 
able to that refinement of feeling which 
characterize the gentleman. Perhaps it 
will appear that he who laughs at others, 
shows that he deserves our pity more 
than the person laughed at. There is no 
subject in the whole province of psychology 
which offers greater difficulties, possibly 
none that offers difficulties so great as that 
of laughing and the ridiculous. You will 
find that we feel tempted to smile, some- 
times, even when our soul is filled with 
horror. We ought then to take care not to 



THE GENTLEMAN. 95 

be betrayed into an act so little understood, 
when done at the cost of another, who 
may feel pained or humbled by our inad- 
vertence. We may further say that every 
thing novel, which does not at once strike 
us as g'rand, sublime or awful, inclines us 
first of all to smile. The advanced state 
of my address prevents me from giving you 
instances. You can easily, however, pro- 
vide them for yourselves. But if the fact 
be as I have stated, you will readily see 
that the smile, caused by everything novel, 
betrays as often our own ignorance as 
any better cause of risibility. You ought, 
moreover, always to remember that every 
human action, perceptible by the senses, 
and which strikes us at all, causes us to 
laugh, if we are unacquainted with its 
antecedents, or if we see it out of connex- 
ion, unless an experienced mind and vivid 



96 THE CHARACTER OF 

imagination quickly supply the antecedents, 
or a well trained mind abstains from laugh- 
ing at others or at striking objects, as a 
general rule. Here, again, the ridiculous 
is not inherent in the phenomenon, but it is 
owing to him that laughs. To see, but 
not to hear, persons singing, is to all untu- 
tored minds ridiculous. Suddenly to find a 
man vehemently speaking and gesticulating 
strikes us as laughable, while, had we 
been present from the beginning, he might 
thrill our very souls by those same tones 
and gestures. Even marks of the tender- 
est affection fare no better in this respect, 
and what is more common than the laugh- 
ing of the uneducated at the accent of 
those, who, nevertheless, may have used 
great diligence and study to make them- 
selves well understood in an idiom, all the 
difficulties of which they are unable to 



THE GENTLEMAN. 97 

overcome^ because they have not learned 
it on their fathers' knees, or from their 
mothers' blessing* lips, and most willing*ly 
would speak to you without any of those 
deviations at which you may smile, did it 
depend upon them. The Koran says, ^^Do 
not mock ; the mocked may be better than 
the mocker." It is a truth, for which none 
of us stand in need of an authority, yet we 
frequently laugh at acts of our neighbours. 
Did we know all the antecedents, their 
whole education, their checkered lives, we 
should find nothing* to smile at, and at 
times, these very acts might make us weep 
indeed. It is a rule, therefore, of much 
practical importance for the gentleman, 
never to laugh at others unless their pre- 
tensions deserve it ; but if he, in turn, be 
laughed at, he will remember that it is a 

common failing of which he has not always 

13 



98 THE CHARACTER OF 

remained free ; that placid good nature is a 
signal attribute of the gentleman, and that, 
if he have given real cause for laughter, 
there is no better means to deprive it 
of all its sting, than freely to join in it. 

I have spoken of laughing at others only, 
not of laughing in general. He that can 
never heartily laugh can hardly have a 
heart at all, or must be of a heavy mind. 
A sound laugh at the proper time is the 
happy music of a frank and confiding soul. 
It is the impulsive and spontaneous song 
which the creator gave to man, and to 
man alone, in lieu of all the lovely tones 
which he profusely granted to the warblers 
of the wood. 

But we must return to more serious 
subjects before I conclude. They shall be 
treated in two more remarks, the last with 
which I shall detain you. They will be 



THE GENTLEMAN. 99 

very brief; but, young* gentlemen, I invite 
your whole attention to them. Ponder 
them ; for they are of momentous import- 
ance for your whole lives — important even 
to your country. 

^^ Habit is the best magistrate/' was a 
wise saying* of lord Bacon's. Merely 
mental acknowledgment of moral truth for- 
sakes you, when it becomes most important 
to apply it — in moments of great tempta- 
tion, of provocation or passion. If repeat- 
ed and constant acting* upon that truth has 
not induced a habit or grown into a virtue, 
it may be sufficiently strong* to produce 
repentance after the offence, but not to 
guide before the wrong be committed. 
Apply yourselves, then, sedulously at once 
to act habitually and constantly by the high- 
est standard of the gentleman — to let a 
truly gentlemanly spirit permeate your soul. 



100 THE CHARACTER OF 

No better opportunity to practise this moral 
rule is given you than your present relation 
to your teachers. Let ever a gentlemanly 
tone subsist between you. You will not 
only make your lives pleasant and sow the 
seeds of happy remembrance, but it will 
give new force and new meaning* to the 
very instruction, for the reception of which 
you have come hither, and it will best' 
prepare you for establishing that relation 
which is one of the happiest, most fruitful 
and blessed that can subsist between man 
and man — I mean friendship between the 
teacher and the taught — a relation of 
which we find so touching an example in 
Socrates and his followers, and so holy a 
model in Christ and his disciples — a rela- 
tion which lends new strength to the mind 
to seize what is offered, and which, in a 
great measure, overcomes the difficulty of 



THE GENTLEMAN. 101 

communion between soul and soul. For, 
all languag-e, except in mathematicsj is but 
approximation to the subject to be ex- 
pressed, and affection is the readiest, truest 
and richest interpreter of the ever-imper- 
fect human word. Believe me, my young* 
friends, however extensive the knowledg'e 
of your teacher, skilful his language, or 
ardent his zeal, and close your attention 
may be, you will hear and learn far more, 
if affection toward him animates that atten- 
tion, and you will integrate with your very 
soul that which, without friendship between 
you and him, remains matter of purely in- 
tellectual activity, liable to be superseded 
by successive layers of knowledge. 

If thus you make the character of the 
gentleman more and more your own, you 
will prepare yourselves in a manner, im* 
portant among others, for the high and 



102 THE CHARACTER OF 

weighty trusts which await all of you as 
citizens of a commonwealth in which we 
enjoy a rare deg'ree of personal liberty. 
I have shown you how closely connected 
the character of the g^entleman is with a 
high standard of true civil liberty, but it is 
necessary to direct your mind, in addition, 
to the fact that there are difficulties in the 
way of attaining* to this high end, peculiar 
to young Americans, while yet it may be 
one of the problems, the solution of which 
is assigned to us by History, to develope 
the peculiar character of the high-bred 
republican gendeman in a pervading na- 
tional type, as it has been that of England 
to develope the character of the monarchical 
gentleman. 

It is difficult for princes to imbibe the 
true spirit of the gentleman, because their 
position and education naturally lead to the 



THE GENTLEMAN. 103 

growth of selfishness ; and so there are, on 
the other hand, difficulties, not insuperable, 
yet positive, in the way of carefully culti- 
vating* this character peculiar to a country 
like ours, in which large numbers are con- 
stantly rolling- westward and changing their 
dwellings, neighbours and associations, in 
which a degree of success, in a worldly 
view, awaits, almost certainly, health, in- 
dustry and prudence, without necessarily 
requiring the addition of refinement of 
feelings or pohsh of conduct, and in which 
a greater amount of individual hberty is 
enjoyed than in any other country. Suffrage 
is almost universal, and so far as the vote 
goes, all have equal weight ; you see some 
persons rise to distinction, without any high 
claim to morality, religion or gentleman- 
hness, and the powerholders, whether they 
be monarchs or the people, a few or many, 



104 THE CHARACTER OF 

ever listen to flattery. It is inherent in 
power; and it is a common belief, thoug^h 
I am firmly convinced of the contrary, that 
larg-e masses are not flattered by g'entle- 
manliness. Even if it were so, we would 
have no right to sacrifice so important a 
moral standard. Are we allowed to do 
any evil which we may yet be fully per- 
suaded would promote our worldly inter- 
est"? Is it ever safe, even in a purely pru- 
dential point of view, to be g-uided by 
secondary motives, when conduct and the 
choice of objects, not the selection of means 
are the question 1 But happily it is not so* 
Even the least educated have an instinctive 
regard for the hig-h-bred gentleman, how- 
ever they may contemn certain counterfeits 
of the gentleman, especially the dandy ; 
and the acknowledgment on the part of a 
whole community that a man is a gentle- 



THE GENTLEMAN. 105 

man, gives him a hold on it most impor- 
tant in all matters of action. Adhere to it. 
If you see others rise above you by prac- 
tices which you contemn, you must remem- 
ber that it is one of the very attributes of 
the gentleman, to stand alone when occa- 
sion requires it, in dignity and self-posses- 
sion, without conceit, but conscious that he 
has acted right, honourably, gentlemanly."^ 
Distrust every one who would persuade 
you to promote your interest by descend- 
ing. The elementary law of all progress, 
be it rehgious, mental, poHtical or indus- 
trial, is that those who have talent, skill, char- 
acter or knowledge in advance of others, 
should draw these after them, and make 

♦ The importance of the character of the gentleman in poli- 
tics, especially in the legislative assembly and in the represen- 
tative in general, has been more fully discussed by me in the 
chapters on the duties of the representative in the second 
volume of Political Ethics. 

14 



106 THE CHARACTER OF 

them rise. This is the truly democratic 
law of united advancement, in which every 
one leads in whatever he can lead. All 
else is suspicious aristocracy — the aristoc- 
racy of a few, or the acristocracy of the 
low, if aristocracy is marked, as I think it 
is, by undue privilege, which is unbefitting* 
to all men, be they a few, or the many. 
Scan history and you will find that through- 
out the annals of civilization this uniform 
law prevails, that a favoured mind per- 
ceives a truth, gives utterance to it, is first 
disbelieved, derided or attacked, perhaps 
called upon to seal the truth with his death ; 
but the truth is not lost on that account ; it 
infuses itself into the minds of the very 
detractors; it spreads farther and farther, 
is discussed and modified ; it collects vota- 
ries sufficient to form a minority, and at 
length the minority swells into a majority, 



THE GENTLEMAN. 107 

which ultimately establishes the principle in 
practice; so that the whole process has 
consisted in men being" led upwards to the 
truth, not in truth descending downward to 
a stagnant level of mediocrityj ignorance 
or want of civiHzation. It requires pa- 
tience and gentlemanly forbearance, but is 
not God the most patient of all? You 
cannot point out a single vast movement of 
mankind towards an essential improve- 
ment, which does not serve as an illus- 
tration of the law which I have just stated 
to you. 

And now, gentlemen, at the very moment 
of writing these last words, I received the 
speech of sir Robert Peel on the 30th of 
June,"^ in which he explains the reasons of 
his resignation and his defeat in parHament, 
after having happily passed the free corn- 

* In the year 1846. 



108 THE CHARACTER OF 

trade bill ; and as the reader is referred in 
some works to a diagram at the end of the 
volume, so shall I conclude by pointing* to 
that manly speech as a practical illustration 
of much that I have said on the conduct of 
the g-entleman in politics. Outvoted in 
parliament, discarded by the party with 
whom he came into office, and seeing- his 
successor in power, influence and honours 
before him^ he still speaks of his whole 
position, his antag*onists and his former 
friends now turned into bitter enemies, 
with calmness, dignity and cheerful libe- 
rality, readily allowing that in a consti- 
tutional country, the loss of power ought to 
be the natural consequence of a change of 
opinion upon a vital party question, that is 
upon a subject of national magnitude. Yet 
he rejoices at having thus come to different 
and truer views upon so essential a point 



THE GENTLEMAN. 109 

as that of the daily bread of toiling multi- 
tudes, and frankly ascribes the chief merit 
of this momentous progress to a person^ 
who belongs to a sphere of politics totally 
different from that in which he himself has 
been accustomed to move. It is a gentle- 

♦ Mr. R. Cobden, member of parliament, and leader of the 
Anti-Corn Law League, has deserved well of mankind. There 
is but one omission in sir Robert Peel's speech, with which 
we feel tempted to find fault. No one admires more than 
myself, Mr. Cobden's wise and energetic course, which, indeed, 
procured him the offer of a place in the cabinet from the 
Whigs, when they were forming their new administration; 
but even his labours and the arduous exertions of the League, 
would have remained unavailing for a long time yet, as it 
seems, had not divine wisdom sent at this precise juncture the 
potato rot, and thus aided one of the greatest advancements of 
mankind, to come to maturity. The historian must mention, 
together wirh Cobden and the League, the potato rot. 

This acknowledgment of sir Robert Peel's is another evidence 
of the invaluable usefulness of that greatest of institutions 
which characterize our own modern liberty — a principled 
and persevering opposition, to which sir Robert Peel bore the 
same striking testimony, when, in 1829, the catholic eman- 
cipation bill had been carried by the Wellington and Peel 
cabinet, and the latter said, in the commons : " One parting 
word, and 1 have done. I have received in the speech of my 



110 THE CHARACTER OF 

manly speech, leaving* a corresponding* im- 
pression in his own country and throughout 
ours, conciliating*, and commanding* esteem, 
— an effect such as always attends a conduct 
truly g*entlemanly, where civilization dwells 
among* men. 

noble friend, the member for Donegal, testimonies of approba- 
tion which are grateful to my soul; and they have been lib- 
erally awarded to me by gentlemen on the other side of the 
house in a manner which does honour to the forbearance of 
party among us. They have, however, one and all, awarded 
to me a credit which I do not deserve for settling this question. 
The credit belongs to others and not to me; it belongs to Mr. 
Fox—to Mr. Grattan—to Mr. Planket— to the gentlemen 
opposite, and to an illustrious and right honourable friend of 
mine who is no more, (meaning Mr. Canni/ig). By their 
efforts, in spite of my opposition, it has proved victorious." — 
And may not be added here, with propriety, the reforms of the 
penal code of England, so perseveringly urged by sir Samuel 
Romilly and sir James Mackintosh, and at length partially 
adopted by sir Robert Peel, in 1830 1 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by 

Francis Lieber, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of South Carolina. 












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